WWALS Watershed Coalition advocates for conservation and stewardship of the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Little, and Suwannee River watersheds in south Georgia and north Florida through education, awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen activities.

Sabal Trail may be thinking of moving their pipeline, but WWALS is
still padding past the original location 10AM Sunday September 21st.
All are invited to come see for themselves the springs, shoals, and sinkholes
that we value more highly than pipeline profit for a company from Houston.
Join us for a fine day on two of our fabulous southern blackwater rivers:
the Withlacoochee River and the Suwannee River, in Hamilton and Suwannee
Counties, Florida.

This event is FREE! All we ask is
that you are a current member of WWALS Watershed Coalition. If not, its easy to join online today at
http://wwals.com/blog/donations/.
You do not have to be a member to come on this outing.
If you like the experience, we recommend that you join to
support the efforts of WWALS.
WWALS is an advocacy organization working for watershed conservation
of the Willacoochee, Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and Little River Systems
watershed in south Georgia and north Florida through awareness,
environmental monitoring, and citizen advocacy.

You don’t have to know anything about the pipeline to enjoy this outing.

But a lot is going on with the Sabal Trail pipeline.
After
Chris Mericle and others presented
at the Hamilton County Commission,
that Commission
called a special meeting and passed
Resolution No. 14-10 19 August 2014.
Then the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
mentioned Chris and Deanna Mericle by name
in its
directions to Sabal Trail of 26 August 2014
saying the pipeline company should examine routes that don’t cross the
Withlacoochee River in Hamilton County.
And that same day of FERC’s letter to Sabal Trail,
Duke Energy announced it wasn’t going to build its
new natural gas plants at its Suwannee Plant.
The same plant Duke was previously going to fuel from the Sabal Trail
pipeline at the route we’re going to see.
Maybe Sabal Trail will move it and maybe it won’t;
meanwhile we’ll go see it for ourselves.

FERC also directed Sabal Trail to look at
four alternatives to its current route past Albany, Georgia,
and three of them go right down I-75 through the middle of WWALS watersheds.
Two of them (Alternative 1 and Alternative 2
run down I-75 through Tifton, Adel, Hahira, and Valdosta on their way past
The Villages in Florida.
One
(Alternative 4)
starts way up at Americus and runs through
Cordele and Ashburn before continuing like those other two down I-75.
All three of those routes go through the same fragile karst limestone
that contains our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer.
FERC did direct Sabal Trail to look into
how
blasting
or
drilling under a river
could trigger sinkholes,
and
which
sinkhole databases Sabal Trail has consulted,
a depth limit for investigations in sinkhole-prone areas where
subsidence could occur.
It’s not clear that pipeline would be safe anywhere in WWALS watersheds,
especially when solar power is faster, cheaper, and far safer.